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Expertise
NESCAFE shares how coffee beans turns into soluble powder
September 2008
THE process of making soluble or instant coffee was patented back in 1909 by a Japanese chemist. In this form, coffee became easy to prepare and lasted longer on shelves.
However, there was much left to be desired when it came to its taste. It would be three decades later, in 1938, when NESCAFE finally produced an instant coffee that would delight consumers’ taste buds around the world.
The key to that revolutionary method’s success was as much advanced technology as it was keeping the coffee itself pure and natural, thus maintaining its flavor and aroma.
After all the work done in the coffee farms, green coffee beans are roasted to bring out its flavor and aroma. During roasting, the beans turn from green, to yellow, and then to different brown intensities. The coffee beans also expand to almost twice its original size.
After roasting, the coffee beans are ground into coarse powder to remove the coffee solids from the roasted and ground coffee. Similar to the percolator or coffeemaker at home, the coffee liquor is extracted from the grind roasted coffee using hot water.
The next step in making instant coffee is to convert the coffee solution to a dry form, called drying or dehydration. Spray drying is the drying method used to produce soluble coffee powder. In spray-drying, cool liquid is sprayed through a nozzle at the top of a tall drying tower. As the droplets fall, they dry, falling to the bottom of the cylinder as fine, rounded powder.
However, coffee would also inevitably lose some of its essences and aroma during the drying process. So NESCAFE captures the gases released during the grinding process so it can be added later into the soluble powder before being packed.
The packing of coffee powder into jars and sachets is carried out in a special environment to prevent coffee particles from absorbing moisture in the air which would deteriorate the flavor or aroma of the coffee during storage. Thus, NESCAFE stays fresh and retains its flavor much longer.
In the end, the coffee bean itself largely determines quality of the final product.
"NESCAFE makes sure that our process produces 100% pure coffee from the finest beans," explains Marcelino Ocampo, NESTLE’s Vice President for Coffee and Beverages Manufacturing Services. "This enables us to bring out the full, natural taste and aroma of coffee in every cup of NESCAFE." |
